When PainKiller gathered for a session in Brooklyn in the spring of 1991, the world was a different place. New York - especially Manhattan - was in transition from a run-down, bankrupt and unsafe crime hell of the mid 1970s to the largely gentrified mega-metropolis it is today; real socialism had lost the battle against capitalism, and the digital world was still a dream of the future - but already visible on the horizon. It was the ideal playground for John Zorn, the radical visionary, composer and saxophonist. He has never been interested in supposedly insurmountable barriers. The first two Naked City albums had shaken the jazz world with their unprecedented blend of jazz, country, hardcore metal, easy listening and film music. And his next project was meant to be even more provoking. Zorn and his friend, bassist and producer Bill Laswell, had invited drummer Mick Harris to record an album. Harris was the drummer of Napalm Death, the most prominent grindcore band in the world. And Guts of a Virgin, the result of their one-day session, was exactly that: extreme music in its purest form. The album provoked most jazz lovers (“too much metal“) and most metalheads (“too jazzy“). The music was cacophonous violence, heavily distorted bass and drum blocks and the alto saxophone were put through the meat grinder. Zorn sounded like a tortured pig most of the time anyway, squealing like he was being slaughtered live. His outbursts are agony (but in a totally positive sense) and - being paired with Laswell’s gritty dub basslines, Harris’s double-bass attacks and wild screams - it was actually a soundtrack for horror films.
Until their split in 1994 PainKiller recorded three studio albums, posthumously there were a few more. The fact that now, after 30 years, Zorn’s Tzdaik label has released a new studio album, Samsara, is both surprising and sensational. Because while the line-up is indeed the same, many things are different today: Manhattan is completely gentrified and too expensive for most free jazz musicians, democracy in the USA is on the brink and the world is primarily digital - the last aspect actually a circumstance that was decisive for the recording of the album, since the three musicians were never in the same room during its creation. Harris - whose focus has become playing electronic music for decades - contributed synthesized beats that he had recorded in Great Britain. Zorn recorded his saxophone parts Laswell’s New Jersey Studio Orange Music. And Laswell added the bass last, in a makeshift mobile studio set up in his Upper Manhattan flat by his long-time sound engineer James Dellatacoma. There was no other way, especially for Laswell, as the great bassist had been struggling with serious health problems in recent years. Diabetes and high blood pressure, a blood infection and problems with his heart, kidneys and lungs resulted in repeated hospitalisations, at times he could barely walk and he had pain in his fingers, which is why he could only play to a limited extent.
But anyone who now believes that the three of them will deliver an album that sounds more subdued and mellow with age is mistaken. Zorn may no longer sound like a pig that's been cut down, but his lines are still hard and brutal, his sound being weird and wild. Laswell’s dub lines still structure the improvisations, giving them a certain grip. The biggest difference to the earlier albums are Harris’s high-pitched pads, which sound like a sea of cymbals. However, all of this is clearly still PainKiller.
“The most important thing about PainKiller is, and this is still true today: it’s the most extreme saxophone-bass-drums group that has ever existed,“ said Zorn in an interview with the New York Times. In the same article, Laswell said that it had taken too long and that he was glad that the band existed as it did. But there were also concerns. Zorn first asked Mick Harris if he would be willing to play drums for PainKiller again. Harris was rather reluctant, as he hadn’t played regularly for years. The turning point came when Zorn saw a live clip of Harris’s solo electronic project Fret and quickly realised that Harris’s basic attitude was still the same - just on a different instrument. On Samsara Harris shifts Zorn’s improvisations and Laswell’s bass lines, creating enormous pressure. The whole thing sounds like a further development of Derek Bailey’s album Guitar, Drum’n’Bass with DJ Ninj (an album which, interestingly, was co-produced by John Zorn).
And finally, another good news: Bill Laswell expressed confidence that there will be another album by the trio in 2025.
Samsara is available on CD. You can listen to “Samsara II“ here:
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